Noah

Posted on October 31, 2012 by francescaforsyth

I haven’t blogged about Noah lately, but he has been doing some awesomeness lately. Here is my installment of Noah stories:

“happy cry” – About a month ago, we got home from church and got busy changing diapers and changing clothes and Noah was downstairs in the meantime doing stuff. He came upstairs and asked me to come see what he had done. He brought me to the chalkboard, where he had drawn a picture of God. I knew it was God because there was a dialogue bubble next to the figure with the word “god” written in it and an arrow pointing at the figure. Dead giveaway. I looked and told Noah is was very nice. He looked at me and with his eyes slightly squinted he said, “Doesn’t it kind of make you want to happy cry?”

lessons – In church the other day, Noah’s Primary teacher pulled me aside and said she felt badly that Noah hadn’t been able to give his lesson. I asked, “what lesson?” His teacher seemed surprised that I didn’t know. She told me that a few weeks ago Noah came to class and raised his hand right away and told her, “I have a lesson to share with the class”. So the teacher asked him to go ahead and share. Noah proceeded to take out a bunch of pieces of paper he had made in preparation and gave a short lesson on faith. Evidently, he had prepared a lesson today also, but there wasn’t time to give it and she felt bad about that. I told her I had no idea he was preparing lessons and totally laughed. What a Noah thing to do. So Noah. I love him.

John Tanner – Last Sunday was our Primary Presentation, where Noah and Liam each had a speaking part and they sang in Sacrament meeting. It was beautiful. Since they performed so well, they got to see a movie and eat treats during Primary in the 2nd hour of church. The movie was one that was put out by the Church about John Tanner – an early Saint that had a miracle in his life and then that gave up money and fortune for the Church because he was converted. At the end of the movie, Noah turned to the kid next to him and said, “When you watch movies like that – doesn’t it make you want to cry a little?” Noah. What a sensitive little soul.

Speaking of the Primary Presentation, I have to mention Liam. For several of the songs, they had learned sign language. It was pure delight to watch Liam try to do the sign language. He would follow the easy signs pretty well, but every once in a while a sign would come up that required specific fingers to be used. Liam would see the sign being made and look down at his hands, furrow his brow and use one hand to push down and raise up the fingers required, then make the sign and look up. By this point, the song had progressed a verse or so and Liam seemed totally unaware that he had missed about 10 signs in between and just continued on with what everyone else was doing. Totally gorgeous. His little, round face was so fervent and serious. He never acted up or poked the kid next to him. He just sat there and looked beautiful. What kind of a 4 year old does that??

Noah was hilariousl, but for different reasons than Liam. Noah really wanted to get a laugh out of the kids in his class and he told me before we went to church that he wanted to add something to the end of his speaking part. He wanted to quickly say “goodbye” at the end, because in practice it had gotten a pretty good reaction. I asked him if he thought that was the right thing to do in church. He said no. When he was standing in the line of kids saying their speaking parts, he looked out into the congregation where I was sitting. I smiled and he scrunched up his face, looked at the microphone and back at me, then he wrung his little hands a little and frowned. It was hilarious to watch him go through the decision making process right in front of me. He decided to just say his part and sit down – no big laugh. Also, Noah knew all of the words to the songs. He was the picture of perfection. He did the sign language, sang the words and when he saw me watching him a huge grin spread across his face. He is delightful. I am lucky to have both Noah and Liam. They are good boys.

immature

Posted on October 24, 2012 by francescaforsyth

Ya know what I feel like screaming sometimes? “I’m way too irresponsible for all this!” and “I don’t want to be awake right now either! So fine, don’t do anything and I’ll go back to bed and no one is going to school today. Who cares?!”

Every morning I get up around 7:30 am (sometimes earlier, like today) and nurse Ray, then around 8 am I go out into the front room, where the other boys are, already awake, and tell them it’s time to get ready for school and take showers. Liam usually falls on the floor. Which was my first response as a kid. He’s stealing my thing. And Noah immediately whines. And I think, “when did I become the responsible parent person? I don’t want to do this either. I’m with my kids. Let’s not do any of this stuff”. And it occurred to me that they will never know that about me. To them – I’m the enforcer, the straight arrow, the one who makes mature choices and handles things others don’t want to … like laundry. But I’m not! And I feel like screaming that at the top of my lungs today.

Maybe it’s because I have a birthday coming up. I am going to be 32 this year. And I feel like I’m getting old. I remember not being at all like what I am today. I was never on time to any. single. event before I was 22 and I broke that record only for my own senior vocal recital. seriously. Ask Daniel. It drove him crazy that I was always late. Growing up I never cleaned my room or made my bed. My parents were disgusted, but not surprised, to find a moldy plate of food under my bed once when I was a teenager. And I don’t think I attended the majority of my classes until my sophomore year in college. I didn’t eat well or watch my weight, I never exercised, I stayed up too late and slept in every morning, I didn’t hold a steady job until I was married, and I never wore cardigans. I don’t wear them. The only reason I’m wearing one today is because I haven’t done laundry and all the sweatshirts I fit into have baby throw up on them. The rest of my sweatshirts are too small right now, because I’m chubby. I wore jeans, t shirts, a pair of Vans and a sweatshirt, almost everywhere. I remember hating the fact that I had to wear a skirt on Sunday to church because I didn’t want to shave my legs, so I found a long, black skirt that I wore all the time because it hid my hairy, unshaven legs in college.

I never knew how to cook and didn’t care. I never threw parties for others – I attended them. I never decorated my house or apartment until I bought a house with Daniel about 5 years ago.

Some of my favorite memories are from times when I was the most irresponsible – staying up all night playing “mow” with my roommates and Daniel in college, driving to Santa Cruz with Mike and Liz one Saturday with no plans – then ending up at KFC and laughing our bums off (I lost my wallet that trip. good times), stopping by Ben’s house to chat at any hour of the day or night, going snowboarding my freshman year in college and blowing half my allotted money for two weeks in one day, piling as many humans as we could into the back of somebody’s pick up truck and heading out to the dollar theatre in Provo, Saturday mornings with Daniel that year we lived it up in Orem …. ah. It all seems like a distant past now.

Now I have a schedule … a routine. ugh. terrible words. I have a certain amount of time allotted to me each day to get what I need to get done and I use it to do laundry and dishes and clean up around my house. What the heck happened? When did I pop out three kids?? When did they start going to school? How did I get responsible enough to even sign them up for school? …. I should probably wear my responsibility and orderly-ness (not a word) as a badge of honor. But I don’t. Not today anyway. It just makes me feel old.

Well, that laundry is still calling my name. I guess procrastination doesn’t make things disappear.

yup

Posted on September 27, 2012 by francescaforsyth

OK, i had to get my life in order and so this morning … I did.

Bedroom cleaned, clothes put away, bed made? … done.

Kitchen – dishes washed and put away, countertops and table wiped down, stuff put away, floor swept and dry swiffered twice then wet swiffered? – done.

By the way, that’s my newly painted tabel and chairs. They used to be black. I can’t remember if I’ve shown this before or not. The sunflowers are from the Ann Arbor farmer’s market I went to with Mandee on Saturday. So pretty. I love the flowers … and the farmer’s market.

Front room picked up and vacuumed? … sooo on top of it!

And what you can’t see is the tummy time that was had on this floor after it was vacuumed. And the laundry that was folded and put away (we’re talking 4 loads). And the toilet and sink that were cleaned in the bathroom (the toilet had not only red mold inside, but black too …. and other colorful marks inside). I also took a shower, got dressed and put on makeup. I ate breakfast AND lunch. And there are loads of laundry running right now. PLUS, I came up with the menu for the baby shower I’m working on. As Daniel and my dad would say, “this is one of your special days”.

Now I’d like to kind of keep it this way …. we’ll see how long it lasts. But the real reason I got this all done was because Ray napped! Lo and behold! The baby actually sleeps! I’m convinced it’s the chiropractor now (new theory … I come up with them constantly). He napped from 9-11:30 am and I had to go in and wake him up. Yes. I will say it again. I woke him up. It was awesome. Then he was awake for a few hours – during which I nursed him, gave him a bath, let him play in the bouncer for a bit and did tummy time where he rolled over. Then I put him down around 1:30 and he screamed like the dickens for about 3 minutes and 10 minutes later I looked in on him and he was fast asleep. I am amazed. Chiropractor. That must be it. I am doing nothing different than I was before. But look at all the stinking stuff I can do when life is normal and Ray naps! I feel like a new woman! Seriously. I wish this were the norm, but it’s not, so I have to blog about it when it happens.

too much information

Posted on September 25, 2012 by francescaforsyth

I keep thinking, “don’t blog about this. You’re going to want to forget about this”, but I want to remember just what it’s really like having an infant so that I never do this again. It’s awful. Let’s say it like it is, OK? It’s awful. And exhausting. Awful and exhausting. It is not only physically exhausting, but mentally too. Mostly because Ray is not on a schedule.

I need to add that it is intensly terrible to have an infant who is not on a schedule, when you have 2 other boys who are on a schedule. A rigid school schedule. Liam’s preschool actually charges you $15 for every 5 minutes you are late picking him up. yeah.

I am constantly coming up with new theories about Ray and why he doesn’t nap well. Napping has become the major issue around here. Short, irregular naps are the norm around here and it’s killing me …. slowly. I tried figuring out his schedule, but he didn’t cooperate. I then thought it was food allergies or some reaction to the food I was eating, so I have literally exhausted myself taking things out of my diet: milk, then gluten, then citrus …. I hate it. My new theory is that he seems like he’s not getting enough milk and he’s hungry because he keeps waking up early and wanting to nurse about every 2 hours again … like he reverted back to being a newborn. My nipples are a mess these days. I am tip toeing around the house whenever I put him down to sleep, watching the clock like my life depends on it and calculating when he should eat, sleep and be wakeful and then everything falls apart because he never sleeps long enough and the whole calculation goes to pot and we have to start over.

Well, I’m tired of starting over. I’m tired of watching what I eat. I’m tired of a screaming Ray every time I put him in his bed. I’m tired of thinking about a new plan of attack. I’m tired of being fat and having a tire around my middle. I’m tired of everything. I want to run away somewhere, alone and just sit in silence. No crying. No mealtimes. No nursing on sore nipples. No noise. No appointments. No laundry, dishes or messy beds. No responsibilities.

I wonder how long it would take for me to actually be bored with all that. Doing nothing. Seeing no one. Hearing nothing. I’m guessing it would take a long time. I guess it would depend on where I was doing all that nothing-ness. Like I’m pretty sure I would never get tired of it, if I were doing a whole lot of nothing in Mexico on the beach. It would take months before I was actually bored of THAT.

I need to remember this, so I’m going to paint myself a picture of what life is these days:

Imagine yourself in gray sweats and Daniel’s gray sweatshirt, with no makeup on, hair frizzed out and in a pony tail. Now imagine that you go out in public like that … pretty much all the time. And you don’t even care.

Imagine yourself nursing every 2 hours, which means you really only have about an hour in between feedings, what with burping and changing diapers in between. Then imagine yourself hearing your screaming baby every hour. Every hour there is a reason for you to hear him screaming and crying – because he’s hungry, messy, cranky, tired, being squeezed and poked by Liam, ya know, a whole myriad of reasons to be screaming at you.

Then imagine that you never go on dates outside of your house because your baby won’t take a bottle or generally be happy with anyone but you. So date nights consist of falling asleep watching BYU football games with Daniel on the couch.

Imagine yourself fat. For a looooooong time. We’re talking about pregnancy fatness and then months, maybe a year or more afterwards where you don’t want to spend money on clothes because who knows how long you’ll be this size … so you end up wearing skirts and sweat pants all the time. And when you can’t wear skirts because it’s too cold, or sweat pants because they’re in the wash, you have to struggle into the one pair of jeans you own in size …. let’s just go ahead and say it …. size 14. yeah. you were once a size 8. Now 14. So you struggle into those pants and guess what? They don’t even cover your bum. size 14. don’t cover your bum. So imagine yourself hiking up your pants every time you bend over, get in or out of the car, or just walk for 15 feet. And when you use a belt, it cuts into your middle and you look like a snowman. Imagine yourself …. as a snowman. This is a very vivid picture, no?

There you have it. Way too much information that I will, no doubt, want to forget. But can’t.

what is up

Posted on September 18, 2012 by francescaforsyth

Yeah, I haven’t blogged in like a month or something. But that’s because it has been crazy around here. School started and life ensued and I have not had a spare moment, even to shower. seriously. I usually wait until Daniel gets home from work. And yes. That means I spend a good majority of my time interacting with humans at the store, or at Liam’s preschool … in my pajamas. whatever. That is absolutely the least of my worries.

Remember when I said Ray was a good baby. I take it back. It’s not necessarily that he’s a bad baby …. just that he’s not an easy baby …. so Ray is a hard baby. About a month ago we enetered the naptime dilemma. Ray is about 3 1/2 months old now and he started showing signs of nap regularity about a month ago. At about two weeks ago, all hell broke loose. He was not napping at ALL in the afternoon, but he was super tired, but couldn’t go to sleep and stay asleep, so he was miserable and therefore I have been miserable. I have to count my blessings. Ray sleeps through the night just fine. Goes down around 9 pm (ish) and gets up like clockwork around 7:30 am. So thank heaven for that. But the rest of the hours of the day are a mess. He’ll sleep for 40 minutes and then be awake for 2-3 hours, then sleep for 10 minutes and then wake up when I lay him in his bed, then he’ll pass out in the swing for like 30 minutes and be awake and screaming after that. Like I said – it’s a mess. And don’t even ask about what I’m doing. I’ve done it all.

I am religious about naptimes. With Noah, I lived and died by naptimes – I skipped church meetings if he was napping. But I can NOT get a handle on Ray. I got a swing and a noise maker for his room that pleasantly plays ocean waves and makes white noise too because I thought Noah and Liam were waking him up. I’ve read “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby” and I’m starting furiously in on “Baby Wise”. I’ve swaddled him. I’ve rocked him to sleep, nursed him to sleep, walked him to sleep. I’ve let him cry it out. I’ve put him to sleep awake but tired. I have kept a record of his wakeful hours vs. sleep hours (really more like sleep “minutes”). I went off of dairy because I thought it was affecting his tummy and keeping him up. I just started a gluten free diet today to see if that makes a difference. I’ve driven him around in the car to sleep.

As Liam would say “It’s not wuh-king!” Anyway, so there’s that. It is affecting everything else. The laundry doesn’t get done, the house is slightly messy kind of all the time (which makes me crazy), dinners are hit and miss and forget about excersizing the 34 extra pounds that have taken up residence on my middle, bum and thighs. Whatever. I will figure it out. eventually. But until then, it is day in and day out insanity. Right now I should be making dinner. Daniel will be home in an hour. But Noah and Liam are playing their Lego Star Wars game downstairs and Ray fell asleep in his carseat, so I am taking a moment to write down what’s been going on.

Liam started preschool for the first time this year. He will only have one year of preschool before he starts kindergarten, unlike Noah who had 2 years, but I think this is better for Liam. After the second day of preschool, Liam’s teacher, Mrs. Yessler, came up to me and said, “We were a bit weepy today”. She said this with the sweetest smile on her face and nodding reassuringly at the same time. It was cute. I asked her why and when and she told him it was at circle time. So when I got home I asked Liam about it and he didn’t have a lot to say (very typical Liam – to not have much to say. I blame Daniel). I didn’t think much of it, maybe it was just new and second day of preschool jitters. Then I took Liam to his third day (he only goes MWF) and as we drove into the parking lot of preschool Liam said, “I don’t want to go to my class. I don’t like their rules”. I parked and said it was OK, he’d get used to their rules and it was time to go in. Liam burst into tears. It was so super sad to see his fat face crying about preschool.

I asked him why he was crying and he tearfully exclaimed, “I don’t know where to sit at suh-cle (circle) time! Mrs. Yes-wer (Yessler) said to we-member where we sat and to sit down and I don’t we-member where to sit!” So cute and sad at the same time. He had fears about circle time! And was worried he’d sit in the wrong place, so instead of asking “where do we sit?” Mrs. Yessler had told me the day before, that Liam had stood by the circle and cried. We’ve been working on “using your words” to express your needs and wants, but Liam still expects people to read his mind …. or at least read his very obvious and telling eyes We went in and talked to Mrs. Yessler together and she said she’d help Liam find a place to sit. When I went to pick him up, she said that Liam had been her “little buddy” all day. My little Liam. He’s such a beautiful, squishy, sensitive soul.

Noah, on the flip side, is LOVING school. He could not be happier. He is in his element. He makes friends and knows their first and last names. wha? seriously, what 6 year old knows their friends’ first and last names?? … Noah. That’s who. He is also starting piano lessons this week. He seems like such a big boy now.

After the first two days of first grade for Noah, I decided to skip out on the ridiculous mayhem that was the front of the school pick-up situation. So, I told Noah and showed him where I would wait for him at the back of the school. So, the next day, I sat there in my car waiting to see Noah. And he showed up. He waited for the crossing guard lady to tell him it was OK to cross the street and then he did and then he looked for me and saw our car and came running for us, backpack on and lunch bag in his hand swinging. I almost had tears in my eyes. Weird huh? But he has his little life all figured out. He goes to recess, has friends he sits with at lunch, friends he plays football with at recess and now he walks to the back of the school and finds our car. I don’t know, I guess it doesn’t sound like much, but it seems like such a huge jump in responsibility from last year. I had to get out of my car and walk up to the front of the school everyday to pick him up, he only went for half days, he only brought a snack to school and there was no recess. Ah, my Noah seems so grown up.

Well, times up. Now Daniel will be home in a half hour, no dinner is made, I haven’t showered and there’s laundry half folded all over my bed. Plus, who knows how many more minutes I have before Ray wakes up – it’s all guesswork these days.

That’s what is up.